WHEN THE CALL ended, I realized it was morning. I had no idea how the hours of the night had slipped away from me. I stared at the giant board, at all the pictures of young women, some taken from high school yearbooks, some from the cold metal surface of a medical examiner’s table. I dug knuckles into my eye sockets, then pulled out my notebook.
STEP ONE: Find Barbara Yost—the only survivor
Gut feeling: She can shed light on the woman from beach, from Jasper’s first story
Gut feeling: That woman caused Jasper to slip up
NEED TO KNOW WHY!!!
Who is the miracle???
“Who?” I whispered to myself.
Then it hit me. Not all at once. But I felt a tickle in my memory. I flipped the page and spoke out loud as I wrote.
“Who would a serial killer think of as a miracle? Family? Someone from his past? What made them special?”
A banging on my door startled me. I spun around, so lost in my work that I imagined Jasper Ross-Johnson bursting into my apartment, a yellow flower in his pale, deathly fingers.
“Hold on,” I said, standing up.
Before I could move toward the door, though, it opened. Zora appeared, stepping in without the slightest hesitation.
“It was open,” she said, looking around. “Who were you talking to?”
“Nobody,” I said, looking away. But then my excitement stormed back. “Come here! Sit. I was just organizing, and I think I’m onto something.”
Zora closed the door behind her. She turned to look at me, that unreadable expression on her face.
“Jasper told me that the miracle wasn’t a thing but a person. It must have something to do with the woman on the beach.”
“Why do you say that?” Zora asked flatly.
“But what made her a miracle? What was special about her?”
I stumbled to my laptop and replayed the recording. Zora stood motionless, listening patiently. When it was over, I slammed the laptop closed.
“His MO was to grab them and then find the flower, and he was out collecting one when he saw the woman on the beach—that means he already had someone that night. Probably Barbara! The woman at the beach must have thrown him off. Just like I thought. That’s how he got caught. How Barbara survived. That woman, the one on the beach, she’s a hero, Zora. But who is she?”
Zora put a hand up. In that gesture, she reminded me of my parents for some reason.
“Look, I know I just met you and it’s the first time we’ve worked together. I mean, I heard the stories about you. That you’re intense … But I have to be honest. You are totally scattered.”
“Whoa,” I said, caught off guard.
“I understand,” she went on. “I really do. And I’ve seen it before. From great filmmakers. I think you’re on the edge. It’s a dangerous game. Hard to come back from. But it’s impossible to make an unbiased documentary when you’re down there.”
I took a deep breath, needing to think. Turning my back to her, I paced across my tiny apartment. Her comment probably had something to do with my scandal. She didn’t trust me. But she was right. I was deep. So; I wasn’t sure it mattered. I could do it myself, alone. Maybe I didn’t need an investigator at all. Maybe that would be best. I knew, somehow, that the Halo Killer was my one chance. It was all or nothing. And after Bender, I didn’t know if I could trust anyone else.
I turned back, about to speak, but my eyes wandered to the pictures pinned to the corkboard against the wall. I found myself staring at the closest photo, the grizzliest of them all. It showed the Halo Killer’s alleged first victim. Her body, badly decomposed, lay prone on a field of large, jagged rocks. Unlike the other victims, she had not been found with a flower around her forehead. But there was something in the picture. I moved closer to get a better look and noticed it was a set of headphones, askew but still covering one ear. Like Jasper’s story from when he was a child.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s best if we go our separate ways.”
I wasn’t really looking at Zora when I said that. And I didn’t see her expression. By the time I noticed, she had turned her back to me as I had done a moment earlier. Her shoulders were tense, her hands balled into tight fists. When she spoke, when she told me her story, she never once looked back at me.
“I promised you I would answer your question from last time. Why I do what I do.” Her voice grew distant as she continued. “When I was little, I was a real daddy’s girl. He taught me to play basketball before I could walk, I think. Started coaching me when I was six. We spent so much time together that, even when I was little, I remember feeling bad. Like it would hurt my mom’s feelings. But we … I never really understood her. She just wanted us to be happy. Especially my dad.
“By the time I was ten, I started to notice things, though. Little stuff at first. There was this one girl’s mom. It started with conversations that would go on too long. Me and the girl would get bored shooting baskets or whatever. And we both would nag them to stop talking so we could leave the gym.
“Then it got more obvious. I saw her touch his hand. She was always laughing at everything he said. And they would whisper sometimes. One day, I smelled her perfume in his car.”
She moved at that point, past me and to the window. Surprised by her frankness, I stared, openmouthed, devouring her story like it would be my next project.
“Maybe I had the bug already. I liked those stupid Hardy Boys books from the library. And I used to watch reruns of Magnum P.I. every chance I got, even though it was cheesy as shit. Whatever gave me the brilliant idea to follow him, I don’t know. But that’s what I did. One night, I slipped out of my room and got the keys to my mom’s car. It was parked out on the street, and I got into the driver’s seat and just waited.
“It was after eleven when he came out. When he drove off, I pulled out behind him. He never—”
“Wait a second! You said you were ten,” I interrupted.
“Or eleven,” she said, still not looking back. “I was always tall. And my dad let me drive all the time. It was no big deal. Anyway, he went straight to her house. I parked and I snuck out. And I saw them. Through the window.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “That’s crazy.”
Her head shook, sadly. “No, that’s not the crazy part. I did it again. The second time, I brought my IPod with me. And I took a picture of them. They were just kissing, but I did it. I was just so mad at him. I felt like everything I ever thought was a giant fucking lie.”
“You showed your mom?” I asked.
“I did,” she said, softly. “Maybe I should have thought about it. Noticed how she was. She was southern. All the charms. I think that’s why we never really saw eye to eye. But when I showed her, she … slapped me. And she took my IPod.”
“Are you serious?”
“She never really spoke to me again. I mean, pleasantries every chance she got. But nothing real. Nothing that meant anything. To be honest, I don’t even know if I cared about that. But my dad? That broke me. He was never the same with me again. He stopped coaching. Stopped playing basketball with me altogether. Never went to another one of my games.”
Zora turned, and her eyes met mine. “I lost them both, then. All because of the shit people hide.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“That’s not why I told you that, Theo. I meant it when I agreed to work with you. I just need to know that you won’t hide anything from me.”
“I won’t,” I said, so totally caught up in her story. “I promise.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding to herself. Then she nodded at me. “I found someone.”
“What?” I asked, my eyes widening. “Who?”
“Martino.”
“Are you kidding?” I rushed over to her. “I couldn’t find a scrap on him. I was starting to think Jasper made the whole thing up.”
“He’s in Delaware. I talked to him already. He’s willing to meet you halfway on the day of your next visit with Jasper Friday morning. For lunch that afternoon in Dover, Delaware. Can I confirm?”
The blood rushed to my head so quickly that my scalp itched. I wanted to hug her, but one look into her hard eyes wiped that idea completely away.
“That is so awesome. So, when you talked to him, did you learn anything?”
“He was Jasper’s father’s lover. For over twenty years.”
“Gold,” I said.
“Maybe.” Zora let out a sigh. “Just remember, Jasper Ross-Johnson is a very dangerous man.”
I took the Amtrak to Delaware early Thursday afternoon. Dropping into one of the last open seats in the quiet car, I slipped my bag to the floor and pulled out the files I’d brought along. Something had been gnawing at my brain. Something about that word—miracle.
And I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind, the vic with the headphones … were they connected? I dove into her file and found what I was looking for almost immediately. It was a small local news article that had come out a couple of weeks before Jasper’s arrest. If I’d been more careful when I first saw it, the file wouldn’t have been labeled a Jane Doe. I shook my head at my own carelessness as I read the headline: HALO KILLER’S FIRST VICTIM IDENTIFIED. Under that, in a lesser type, was the subtitle JANE DOE MOTHER OF THE 1996 MIRACLE BABY. As I read the article, my mind drew the scene. And my film found its miracle.
ACT ONE/SCENE 6
EXT. EMPTY PARKING LOT—DAY
Cracked pavement bakes under the early-autumn sun. Faded white lines lay out a half-dozen empty parking spots. In the corner of the lot, we see a run-down outhouse. A baby’s broken cry shatters the silence. A CHYRON appears on the screen: SEPTEMBER 12, 1996.
The newborn had been abandoned to die in an outhouse sink. It was a hot September night. The restroom sat in a little hut off the parking lot of a remote state-owned beach. Outside, a translucent ghost crab sidled up the dune, sending granulates raining softly down the side. At full speed, it disappeared into a perfectly rounded hole, a darker circle surrounded by countless scratch-like markings left by its frantic legs during a long night’s work. A second later it popped back out, returning to the hunt. When the scream echoed out of the open door of the small building, the crab disappeared again in a flash of white.
Inside, as her scream faded into the lonely night, a woman moaned. She had a name but would be known as Jane Doe for far too long. Utterly alone, she labored in the darkness. The bones of her elbows looked sharp enough to slice clean through the graffiti-covered walls of the single stall. The smell of fresh blood mingled with the brine and musk, so pungent that even she cringed. The pain struck again. Her narrow fingers clawed at her exposed belly, as if she might rip her life away, like she might start over somehow. A clean slate. All the past mistakes unmade.
The baby was born five minutes later, slapping to the tile floor. A final scream tore from the woman’s mouth. Her eyes closed, and her back slid down the stall wall as her bent knees gave out. For an instant, a heavy silence fell over the scene. Then the baby wailed. And the placenta slipped to the floor.
The sounds were enough to resurrect the woman, if only for a moment. Quickly she snatched the baby off the floor, cradling her against her chest. Blood and mucus stained the white fabric of her bikini top. The woman took a step but stopped, feeling the tension tugging at the baby’s umbilical cord. Her eyes returned to the floor, to the organ that had once been hers. A dazed emptiness clouded her eyes as she bent and scooped the placenta up in one hand.
Her feet barely left the tiles as she shuffled to the one sink. Sweat covered every inch of her skin as she stood before a clouded, cracked mirror, staring at her half-naked self. At the baby against her chest. And the raw, red mass morphing around her fingers.
Did she intend what happened next? Had the woman known what she would do in that bathroom by the sea? Maybe her instinct moved her to the sink, where she could clean the birth off her newborn child. She could leave that place. Together, they could start a new life.
Tragically, miraculously, that is not what happened that night. Gently, lovingly, the young woman placed the baby and placenta into the basin. Her bloodied hands moved with an agonizing slowness as they pulled away. She took a step backward. Then another. Grabbing a meager pile of belongings, including a pair of cutoff jean shorts and a battered neon-yellow Walkman, the shattered young woman turned and hurried through the open door, out into the night, tears of heart- break tracing down her cheeks.
So many questions haunted that tiny shack below the dune, carried out into the harsh world on the back of an infant’s calls. In a way, those questions were both a beginning and a beginning to the end.
Four days passed. Doctors would later say that the conditions were as perfect as possible. An unseasonably warm week in September. The cool porcelain of the sink. The fact that babies are born with fluid and glucose stored in their liver. As unlikely as the baby’s survival was, what surprised everyone was the vitality of her scream.
The tourist season had just ended. The small beach, never crowded, did not see a visitor until Friday evening. A white Toyota pickup pulled into the small lot. A man exited the truck and moved around to the back. As he reached for the first handful of fishing gear, he heard it. A baby crying.
At first, the man thought nothing of it. He pulled rods out of the bed and placed his stocked Igloo on the ground. When he heard her again, he paused. Casually, he turned his head, taking in the entire lot, noticing that his truck was the only vehicle there. His head shook as he gathered what he needed and took his first step toward the path across the dune. The third time, he stopped dead in his tracks, realizing that the sound came from the small outhouse on the other side of the crackled asphalt.
The fisherman dropped his gear and his cooler. He sprinted, his mind straightening into a narrow line of action. The door remained open. As he reached it, a smell struck, one he knew to be rotting flesh. He flinched but pushed through it. His hand grabbed the jamb and he took his first step into the bathroom.
What he saw in that outhouse sink changed his life. For years, he would awaken at the witching hour to a flashback image of her, mouth gaping like a dark hole cut through the gaunt lines of her face. The bare, twig-thin arms and legs. And, most memorable, the two, tiny hands clenched into menacing little fists. As if this baby was not screaming for rescue but in defiance. As if she was saying she could take anything this life might dish. Now and forever.
The fisherman never touched her. Instead, he fumbled his flip phone out and dialed 911. He stood a foot away from the abandoned, malnourished, dehydrated newborn. His hands hovered closer, as if at any minute he might finally sweep her into his arms. His eyes found the dried umbilical cord still attached. Then the shriveled placenta. This father of three, a man who could gut a bluefish in less than a minute, swallowed down a mixture of revulsion and panic.
Three minutes later, the police found the man in that exact same position, his hands eternally reaching for her. The first officer, a man three months from retirement, pushed past the angler and rushed to the sink. His years of service vanished. He spared not even a single thought to crime scene procedures. To contamination of evidence. Instead, the officer scooped her up out of the cool basin and hugged her to his warmth. Her head turned with surprising strength. Her mouth opened. And this abandoned child, left exposed and without nourishment or fluids for four days, attempted to nurse from his crisply ironed uniform.
For the first time in his long career, the officer cried. The fisherman took a step back toward the door just as the ambulance arrived.
“It’s okay,” the officer said. “It’s okay.”
She felt like air in his arms. Like she might float right out of his grasp, right up to heaven. When he moved toward the exit, her tiny bones called to him. His mind counted those he could see until he had to stop. Jogging carefully, he crossed the lot, meeting the first paramedic halfway to the ambulance.
“It’s bad,” he said, softly, as if he did not want her to hear his words. “Had to be here for days.”
The paramedic reached for the baby, but the officer would not let go. A second technician pulled the gurney from the back, the wheels clanging down to the pavement.
“We need to help her,” the paramedic said.
In a daze, the officer lowered the baby girl onto a sterile white blanket. As the medics burst into action, the officer watched her through a film of tears.
“A miracle,” he kept whispering. “She’s a little miracle.”